Washington, D.C.

Limited imports sought for endangered animals

In a break with long-standing practice, the Bush administration is proposing to permit limited imports of endangered wild animals as hunting trophies and commercial products, potentially ranging from skins for leather handbags to aquarium pets.

The policy shift is intended to provide incentives for poor countries to expand established conservation programs with profits from the sale of live animals, as well as parts and trophies, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials said.

In the past, the U.S. government permitted certain species on the verge of extinction abroad to be brought into the United States for research, breeding and educational purposes. But this would be the first time in the 30-year history of the Endangered Species Act that the nation has allowed such animals killed in the wild to be imported.

Germany

Concentration camp memorial vandalized

Vandals desecrated a Jewish cemetery and a memorial to concentration camp victims in two separate incidents over the weekend, officials said Sunday.

Forty-two headstones in a Jewish cemetery near Gundesberg in central Germany were sprayed with graffiti including “Heil Hitler,” “Sieg Heil” or simply “Hass,” the German word for hate, police in nearby Kassel said.

Separately, a memorial to the victims of a World War II-era concentration camp near the northeastern city of Ravensbrueck was sprayed with anti-Semitic graffiti, a state official said.

Guenter Morsch, who heads the federation for memorials in the northeastern state of Brandenburg, called on police to find and prosecute the vandals.

Afghanistan

Election law bans armies among political parties

The Afghan government banned warlords Sunday from taking part in politics, a move that would prevent some of the country’s top leaders from participating in next year’s pivotal elections.

The new law is seen as crucial to helping the country become a stable democracy, as Afghanistan has long been dominated by private militias whose rivalry kept the country at war for 23 years.

The law, if enforced, is likely to affect several of the nation’s leaders. The Northern Alliance, which supported Hamid Karzai in becoming president after the ouster of the Taliban in late 2001, is a collection of warlords — many of them provincial governors or national politicians.

India

Crackdown on Hindus leads to 1,500 arrests

Police arrested 1,500 Hindu nationalists in India’s largest state over the weekend for fear their new campaign to build a temple at the site of a razed 16th century Muslim mosque could lead to violence, officials said Sunday.

Most of those arrested since Saturday were members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or the World Hindu Council, and the hard-liner Hindu political party, Shiv Sena, officials in Uttar Pradesh state said Sunday.

The council has called a rally for Thursday to demand Hindus be allowed to build a temple in the city of Ayodhya, 300 miles east of New Delhi.

Hindu hard-liners believe the Babri mosque was built by Muslims on the site of an earlier Hindu temple honoring their supreme god, Rama. Muslims say there’s no proof of that and oppose Hindu plans to build a temple there.